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 1 5 2 Revieivs of Books lost at sea on the return trip. Of the few that were preserved, five are reproduced in the vohnne. Of these, a view of the city of San Fran- cisco in 1850 is especially interesting. A map showing Audubon's route is added. Edwin E. Sp.rks. A Political History of the State of Xcw York. By DeAl-. St. - wooD Alkx.xnder. (Xew York: Henry Holt and Company. 1906. Two volumes, 1774-1832, 1833-1861 ; pp. x, 405 : vi, 444.) This work is almost the sole possessor of a very attractive field of study. Its only predecessor in the attempt to portray the whole pano- rama of political history in the state of Xew York is Jabez D. Ham- mond's old-fashioned and hopelessly inadequate work. Hammond's last volume, devoted to the biography of Silas Wright, does not quite reach the middle point of the nineteenth century. Our author interprets his title literally. Although the Revolution did not break the continuity of local party development, the political history of the colony of Xew York is ignored. To the closely balanced party strife during the initial stages of the Revolution he makes only a few confused and confusing allusions in his introductory chapter. John Lamb, probably the most influential of the four principal leaders of the Liberty party in the city, is not even "named. Into the same oblivion has fallen William Mooney, the chief founder of the Tammany Society. With the second chapter the curtain rises at once upon the adoption of the constitution of 1777, and the in- aug^iration of the first elected governor of the state upon the historic barrel in front of Kingston courthouse. The author's plan of composition is indicated in these sentences from the preface to the first volume : " Indeed, the history of a State or Xation is largely the history of a few leading men, and it is of such men only, with some of their more prominent contemporaries, that the author has attempted to write. . . . Rarely more than two controlling spirits appear at a time, and, as these pass into apogee, younger men of approved capacity are ready to take their places," This theory enables the author to follow rather closely in Hammond's track, although he avoids the dreary verbiage of the elder author, and makes good use of biographies and memoirs relating to the characters who sustain the constant duel in the centre of his stage. Three hundred and forty out of the four hundred and five pages in the first volume are devoted to the personal fortunes of the two Clintons on the one side, and to the long succession of their opponents on the other, Schuyler, Hamil- ton, Burr, the Livingston clan, Tompkins. 'an Buren and the Albany Regency. The last fifty pages contain a rapid review of events from 1828 to 1834, setting the scenery for the next great duel between " two controlling spirits ", Martin Van Buren and Thurlow Weed. In the second volume the first seven chapters describe the leadership of 'an Buren, Marcy, Wright and Croswell against the famous firm of Seward and Weed, to which (ireclcv was now to be addcil — and with